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"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name." - Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching "I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect." - J. Krishnamurti  Jeff Foster's books are now available in 6 languages... "Jeff Foster writes with wonderful clarity about what he refers to as 'the utterly, utterly obvious.' This is radical, bare, uncompromising nonduality... ENGLISH BOOKS THE WONDER OF BEING: AWAKENING TO AN INTIMACY BEYOND WORDS
"I am not here to teach you how to become an awakened or enlightened person, how to have spiritual experiences or enter spiritual states. All states and experiences, even the most blissful ones, come and go. They may be beautiful, and very pleasurable, but they are time-bound, and so they come and go. This book is about that which does not come and go. It points to a possibility that goes beyond your attempts to awaken, your search for enlightenment, and your experiences of states of bliss, peace, joy, silence, and so on; a possibility that goes right to the core of who you really are, beyond who you think you are. It points to the wordless essence beyond the passing forms of this world, an essence which, in the final analysis, is not separate from the forms that appear. This is what I feel is the true meaning of the word ‘nonduality’. It takes no time to be what you already are, but it appears to take time to recognise what you are not. As long as words are needed, this book meets you in your dream of individuality, to remind you of something that you’ve always known. And when words are no longer needed, well, that’s when the adventure really begins. With love from yourself. - Jeff Foster, Brighton, England, March 2010 Beyond Awakening: "[Jeff's words] resonate with honesty, integrity, and love - which imbues them with the power to go beyond just words - and mind. I highly recommend this book to you." - Victor Davich, author of 8 Minute Meditation "Gratitude is arising here, gratitude for the unspeakable beauty of your words..." - John Astin, author of This is Always Enough "This is uncompromising, absolute nonduality." - Joan Tollifson, author of Awake in the Heartland "One of the clearest and most direct texts in pointing to your true nature." - Randall Friend, You Are Dreaming "A confession of what is. Read Beyond Awakening and you will come to know what non-separation is like to someone - or no one - who lives in the recognition of it" - Jerry Katz, author of One: Essential Writings on Nonduality "A beautiful book. Clear, insightful and enjoyable... It sets out to do everything that books on non-duality try to do - to express the inexpressable - but there is a deep underlying intelligence in the writing that I haven't seen before." - Review from Amazon UK. Life Without A Centre: "This is a quietly powerful book that leads you to the plunge into Nothingness." -Jerry Katz, author of One: Essential Writings on Nonduality "There are no words to do justice to the sheer beauty of this book, and its power of awakening resonance." - Amazon Review "This is the Ram Dass 'Be Here Now' of the Noughties ... and once read will change you more than any book has ever done before, but the odd thing is it will only change you back to you - the unchangeable!" - Amazon Review AN EXTRAORDINARY ABSENCE: LIBERATION IN THE MIDST OF A VERY ORDINARY LIFE by Jeff Foster “Closer to a Hymn of Praise than anything else. An awed expression of love and wonder and joy. Comes very close to representing the paradoxical essence of being....
*** REVIEWS "This is, quite simply, the clearest expression of the way non-duality really is that I've ever read. This is the end of mental certainty, specialness, tales of blissful states, catty infighting about non-dual terminology, 'no self' mantras, and so many other traps and myths. Here you get a no-bullshit, raunchy, loving, honest, nitty gritty message. This is the destruction of the one who would try to own non-dual realization in any way. This reveals that the mind's attempt to land on dualistic opposites is futile. This is nothing appearing as everything including everything 'you' would like to reject or call 'unspiritual.' This is the end of non-duality as a religion that divides. This is about what non-duality really is once the mind stops trying to own it. It is total and unconditional love of what is. All inclusive. This is everything from death, to washing testicles, to the beauty of a flower, to tears welling up as a woman tells her dream of owning a bed and breakfast, to seeing a lover the way she really is, to Britney Spears filling the universe, to excruciating pain in the anus. Somehow it is all love and that is what Jeff conveys. In Jeff's usually vibrant style, he expresses that every experience, state, thought, and emotion comes and goes,' is embraced totally while it is here, and leaves without a single trace. This is not about detachment. Only a self could be detached. This is about total intimacy with whatever is appearing. When you pick up this book, leave your beliefs behind. Leave your ideas about non-duality behind. Leave the idea that you are a self or not a self behind. None of that helps you here. This is a full on collision of opposites, leaving only a love that knows no opposites but appears as every opposite. Nothing is excluded. This truth can never be expressed. Jeff makes no claims of being able to express it. These are not his words. These are the words of love. In this place, even the word non-duality makes no sense anymore." - Scott Kiloby, author of "Love's Quiet Revolution: The End of the Spiritual Search" "Jeff Foster is a young and gifted confessor or sharer of what is. Jeff’s words are full of space. This book is incredibly effective in getting “you” to see there has never been a “you.” There’s only this. I like the writing styles: Question and answer; confessions of what is; some writing structured as poems; and a fourth kind of writing that is set off by its own font, a courier typewriter style font, that gives a sense of “happening now.” This fourth kind of writing appears throughout the book under the heading “this”; here’s an example: “Silence. I have no answer for her. This is empty of questions and answers. I am a child, I know nothing about nonduality. All I know is car horns, the whiff of aftershaves, the blowing of noses and aching of feet. This is where I live. Right here, not in some other dimension. The mouth opens to speak, even though I have no idea what to say.” An Extraordinary Absence is a book of beauty but it’s not pretty. Jeff talks about pain, including his own extreme physical and emotional pain. He writes about the spectrum of humanity from “A little red-faced toddler in blue dungarees” to a man with terminal cancer: “He is losing control of his bowels … I don’t tell him there’s no suffering, I don’t say `I’m enlightened and you’re not,’ I don’t even mention nonduality, I just wash his testicles.” The Foreword by Kriben Pillay and the Introduction by Philip Pegler are themselves worthwhile documents on nonduality. Especially Kriben, a writer, observer, researcher, and publisher of nondualia since the mid-90s, makes strong statements: “Much of the current nondual scene is … engaged in layered deceptions…” It is essential that nonduality constantly check and undo itself. If the worldly construction of nonduality — as it is known in books, websites, forums, gatherings, conferences, satsangs, all media — if it can’t stand up to its decimation, what good is it? Something else I like about this book is the quotations. They balance the book. By around page 90 came the insight that I was reading a classic, even a potential screenplay with Jeff starring and doing the voiceover. I also like how Jeff brings in Zen, Advaita, and Christianity. The emphasis on Christianity and crucifixion convey that Jeff knows Jesus the man, and resonates with the pain and the utter humanity exposed in this book, and yields this confession: “Waking up from the dream of separation, there is a death, and that death, as Jesus said, is the only salvation. You have to lose your life to save it. And so when there is no-one, there isn’t an empty void, a lonely and joyless black space devoid of all qualities, no, no, no. That void is full, it is bursting with life. … And in that, all the concepts in the world dissolve.” Read An Extraordinary Absence and watch how you become comfortable with wonder." - Jerry Katz, Nonduality.com *** "In writing this book, I wanted to get right to the heart of the matter. I wanted to strip away all the fluff, all the spiritual baggage, all those second-hand concepts we've picked up about nonduality, Advaita, awakening, enlightenment, and start again. I wanted to take a fresh look at what nonduality really is - beyond those fancy concepts we have about it - and get right back to the aliveness of everything. Back to life, as it is. Back to reality, as it reveals itself to us. I wanted to write from the heart, to move away from those heady, stale, dry, lifeless words that have used in the past to describe the indescribable, and towards something far more juicy, far more alive, far more loving, in fact. Something more human, more aligned to life, as it is. More - dare I say it - personal; which is a paradox considering that this is ultimately a message that emanates from a clarity that is totally free from the bundle of conditioning known as 'the person'. This book does not deny any aspect of life. It does not deny our humanness, our humanity, our being-in-the-world but embraces it totally as part of an infinitely bigger picture. It does not reject 'the person' as being some sort of 'mistake' (as if Oneness made mistakes!); it does not deny the individual and their apparent existence (and how easily nondual concepts can be used to deny reality!); it does not attempt to soften, blot out or philosophise-away life as it is.... but it also does not fuel the individual's seeking by offering false hope or easy, comforting answers. It honours the message of radical nonduality (no person, no path, no time) but it also honours the appearance of the individual in the dream world (person, path, time). It does not reduce nonduality to a simplistic and facile philosophy or belief system. Exactly the opposite, in fact: it urges the reader to see past all philosophies and belief systems, to meet life face-to-face and in that meeting, discover an intimacy beyond words, an absence which is a total, complete, full presence. The concepts of nonduality, Advaita and neo-Advaita simply explode in the face of life as it is, in the face of the rawness of experience, which time and time again I come back to in this book. The rawness of what's happening - witnessing a loved one being buried, lying in a hospital bed in agonizing pain after an operation - that is real. And that is what this book honours. Be warned - this book is not for the faint hearted. If you like your truth diluted, if you want to be comforted with new spiritual concepts, look elsewhere. But if you are ready to drop all of your knowledge, and see life with fresh eyes, I invite you to An Extraordinary Absence. It's the book I've been wanting to write for years; it's just taken until now to find the right words. This is raw, no-holds-barred nonduality, and I make no apologies for that. I have no interest in being a 'teacher'; what fascinates me is life, as it is, and in this book I wanted to begin again, to start from the very beginning and present the truth as I see it as honestly and as clearly as possible, finding new and fresh ways of expressing the inexpressible, without compromising on the core message. I hope you enjoy it." ***
EXTRACTS *
This is beyond existence and non-existence. It’s beyond self and no-self. It’s beyond subject and object, time and space, past and future. All those words become redundant when the taste of your cup of tea, or the tweet-tweet of a bird, or the roar of the traffic becomes the most fascinating thing in the world.
*
Subject and object arise together and dissolve together.
And yet, in truth, there is no subject, and no object.
There is only what’s happening. And even that is saying too much.
*
What should you do with your life? It’s always the wrong question. Wait and see what life does.
“But this will lead to inaction and passivity!” you say. Well, what I find is that action happens. It breathes. It moves. It gets out of bed. It brushes its teeth. It plans, or doesn’t. It talks, or doesn’t. It travels, or doesn’t. The Mystery has its own way. Fall madly in love with it all. Or don’t. The Mystery remains a Mystery either way.
It is the seeker who is passive.
*
I used to think that it was very important to have something called a purpose. I spent years trying to find this purpose. I made myself very miserable in doing so. Everyone else seemed to have one, but I couldn't find mine.
How wonderful to see that life needs no purpose. That its purpose is its purposeless present appearance. Does music have a purpose? Does a sunset have a purpose? Does dancing have a purpose? Its purpose is in the listening, in the seeing, in the dancing. Life is at once meaningful and meaningless. It’s both and it’s neither.
How wonderful to see that my purpose – if there is any such thing – is just to be sitting here, breathing, heart beating, sounds happening. What awesome freedom in that.
*
Why do we look for God when he is always staring us in the face? In every sight, sound and smell. In the trees and flowers and birds, in the roaring of traffic, in the beating of the heart. In these words and outside of them. In the white of the paper and the black of the ink. In the space and in the silence. In the in-between and the unseen as much as in the visible. In the throb of life and in the peace of death. In the cry of the baby, and the death rattle of the old man. In everything, as everything, God sings.
The word ‘universe’ literally means ‘one song’.
There could have been nothing. And yet there appears to be something here. There might have been a dark, empty void with nobody there to know it. And yet there appears to be something happening here. There appear to be sights, sounds, smells, colours, motion. Bodies, trees, flowers, cars. Wars, cancers, puppies. There could have been nothing, and yet there is something.
That’s the only miracle. There’s no need to make one movement away from that. We’re always seeing the miracle unfolding right before our very eyes. Do we realise how lucky we are?
*
It’s the shift from
a person sitting on a chair,
to sitting on a chair just happening.
The shift from a person walking down the street,
to walking down the street just happening.
From a person living their life, to life just happening.
This shift doesn’t happen in time.
In truth, it’s already happening.
*
The individual looks around the world and asks “What is the point of all this? What is the meaning of life?”
If there’s any point to this manifestation, it’s in the seeing of it. Everything is there to be seen.
It’s like waking up from a dream, and wondering what the point of the dream was. Well, from within the dream, there could be a million different answers to that question. A million different meanings, explanations, theories.
But when you step out of the dream - and of course, that’s not something that you can do - what’s seen is that the dream was only ever leading to one place.
Within the dream of time and space, it seemed as though A was going to lead to B. In the waking up, it is seen that A was only ever leading to the waking up. And so it wasn't really 'leading' anywhere at all, because outside of the dream there is no time, and so no causation.
Everything in the dream points to the possibility of liberation.
*
this...
I am talking to a woman. She is telling me about a passion of hers. Her dream is that one day she will own and run a small hotel, a bed and breakfast by the sea. I notice that her eyes begin to well up with tears as she relates her dream to me. And then I notice that these eyes start to well up with tears too. It’s like what’s happening there is being mirrored here. Because there is nothing to get in the way, what is left here is just a total openness to others, just an open space which welcomes everything that appears. Her eyes well up, my eyes well up, what’s the difference?
When there is nobody here, there is nothing to block ‘you’ out. Because there is no ‘me’, there is no separate 'you' either. There are just voices, faces, the welling up of tears, or not. Just what’s happening. What’s happening fills all space. As that woman relates her story to me, I become her. I long to own a little bed and breakfast by the sea. It is my heart’s true desire. I feel the passion deep within my bones, and the tears come.
I’m watching television. It’s a game show. A man has just won a large sum of money. He says he is going to use it to take his family on holiday. They’ve never been on holiday before. The man laughs and shouts and weeps with joy. This laughs and shouts and weeps with joy. There is nothing to separate us. Oh, my family will be so happy when they find out!
Images of famine on the television. A young Somalian girl, all skin and bone, with hollowed out eyes and sticks for arms, gazes into the camera. There is nothing to block that poor child out. I am the child. I am gazing at myself. She enters me, and everything heals itself.
I am on the train. A large bald-headed man starts to shout at me for no reason. I think he is drunk. He shakes his fists. His face is red with anger. I am the man. I feel the anger, the violence, and underneath it, the anxiety, the fear, the contraction that goes along with being a separate person. I have been this man. I am this man now. He is myself, coming to meet me on the 12.23 to
And then the woman stops talking about her bed and breakfast dreams, and the tears are wiped out. There is no memory of them. Everything is wiped clean, and it begins again.
The game show ends, and I change channels on the television, and it’s now a shopping channel, and the laughter and joy and money and family are wiped out, and now there is only fascination with item number 176387, what beautiful colours! It becomes absorbed in the shopping channel, and the game show vanishes without a trace. The game show might have happened a million years ago for all I care: this replaces everything.
The doorbell rings and I walk away from the image of the starving child. It’s my friend at the door. The starving child is wiped out, and my friend replaces her. The beauty of this is that it’s everything and it’s nothing. It’s no particular thing. One thing replaces another, and there’s no way of knowing what’s coming next. Friend replaces dying child, brother replaces friend, shopkeeper replaces brother, cat replaces shopkeeper. It emerges out of the Unknown, innocently, playfully, ceaselessly.
I walk away from the angry man. The anger disappears immediately. It’s like it never happened. Something else takes its place. And then something else. And then something else. There’s enough space here for an entire world. Joy, anger, fear, sadness, laughter, tears. Everything is welcome here.
I have no way of blocking life out anymore. Because there is nobody here, there is only raw, unedited, uncensored, unfiltered experience. And you can’t even call it an 'experience': there’s nobody here to experience anything. There’s just this, happening to no-one. Nobody sheds tears, nobody senses anger, nobody watches television.
But it’s not an empty void. It’s a space that’s constantly filled by life. By the woman who wants the bed and breakfast by the sea, by the starving child, by my friend at the door. You provide the solidity that I lack. The story of time and space is dead here, but you keep it going for me. There’s nobody here, but then you enter the picture, and suddenly ‘there is nobody here’ is – like any concept – not true.
When you are not, what else is there but to be all that is?
When the witness collapses into everything that’s witnessed, when awareness collapses into its contents, all that remains is a deep and total fascination with whatever is happening. THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ARE NOW OUT OF PRINT IN ENGLISH: BEYOND AWAKENING: THE END OF THE SPIRITUAL SEARCH by Jeff Foster
£7.95/$13.95 "[Jeff's words] resonate with honesty, integrity, and love - which imbues "This is a book about the utterly obvious. It's about the spiritual search, and the frustrations surrounding it. It's about those ultimate goals we set ourselves: enlightenment, awakening, liberation, and how those goals can never actually be reached, because - and here's the great discovery – the person who seeks them has no more reality than a presently-arising belief. That is to say, "you" are just a thought, happening now.
A sequel to the bestselling " Life Without A Centre: Awakening from the Dream of Separation", this book is packed with clear and vibrant expressions of nonduality. Time and time again, the text gently points back to the futility of both the spiritual search, and the "search to end the search" (another game the mind loves to play). With great humour, compassion and clarity, the book will draw you into a direct confrontation with your own absence, an absence which, paradoxically, is also a perfect presence. This may be the last book a spiritual seeker will ever need."
EXCERPT
(FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED "A WALK IN THE RAIN") “In the gap between subject and object As the story goes (and I can barely remember any of it now) I was walking through the rain on a cold Autumn evening in
And with the death of separation, I was everything that arose: I was the darkening sky, I was the middle aged man walking his golden retriever, I was the little old lady hobbling along in her waterproofs. I was the ducks, the swans, the geese, the funny looking bird with the red streak on its forehead. I was the trees in all their autumnal glory, I was the sludge sticking to my feet, I was my body, all of it, arms and legs and torso and face and hands and feet and neck and hair and genitals, the whole damn lot. I was the raindrops falling on my head (although it was not my head, I did not own it, but it was undeniably there, and so to call it "my head" is as good as anything). I was the splish-splash of water on the ground, I was the water collecting into puddles, I was the water swelling the pond until it looked fit to burst its banks, I was the trees soaked by water, I was my coat soaked by water, I was the water soaking everything, I was everything being soaked, I was the water soaking itself.
And everything that for so long had seemed so ordinary had suddenly become so extraordinary, and I wondered if, in fact, it hadn't been this way all along: that perhaps for my whole life it had been this way, so utterly alive, so clear, so vibrant. Perhaps in my lifelong quest to reach the spectacular and the dramatic, I had missed the ordinary, and with it, and through it, and in it, the utterly extraordinary.
And the utterly extraordinary on this day was awash with rain, and I was not separate from any of it, that is to say, I was not there at all. As the old Zen master had said upon hearing the sound of the bell ringing, "there was no I, and no bell, just the ringing", so it was on this day: there was no "I" experiencing this clarity, there was only the clarity, only the utterly obvious presenting itself in each and every moment.
Of course, I had no way of knowing any of this at the time. At the time, thought was not there to claim any of this as an “experience”. There was just what was happening, but no way of knowing it. The words came later.
And there was an all-pervading feeling that everything was okay with the world, there was an equanimity and a sense of peace which seemed to underlie everything there was; it was as though everything was simply a manifestation of this peace, as if nothing existed apart from peace, in its infinite guises. And I was the peace, and the duck over there was it too, and the wrinkly old lady still waddling along was the peace, and the peace was all around, everything just vibrated with it, this grace, this presence that was utterly unconditional and free, this overwhelming love that seemed to be the very essence of the world, the very reason for it, the Alpha and the Omega of it all. The word "God" seemed to point to it too, and the word "Tao", and "Buddha". This was the self-authenticating experience that all religions seemed to point to in the end. This seemed to be the very essence of faith: death of the self, death of the "little me" with its petty desires and complaints and futile plans, death of everything that separates the individual from God, death of even the idea of God himself ("if you see the Buddha, kill him") and a plunge into Nothingness, the Nothingness that reveals itself as the God beyond God, the Nothingness that all things are in their essence, the Nothingness that gives rise to all form, the Nothingness that is the world itself in all its pain and wonder, the Nothingness that is total Fullness.
And yet this so-called "religious experience" is not really an experience at all, since the one who experiences, the "me", is the very thing which is no more. No, this is something beyond, something prior to, all experience. It is the foundation of all experience, the ground of existence itself, and nobody could ever experience that, even if the world lasted another billion years.
*
That day, there was nobody there, and yet everything was there in its place. Beyond experience or lack of it, there were the ducks flapping their little wings, there were the raindrops trickling down my neck, there were the puddles under my shoes which were now caked in mud, there was the grey sky, there were other bodies, just like mine, splashing through the puddles, some walking their dogs, some alone, some cuddling up to their loved ones, some running frantically to escape the downpour.
And there was a great compassion. Not a sentimental compassion, not a narcissistic compassion, but a compassion that seemed to be part of what it meant to be alive on that day, a compassion which seemed to be the very essence of life, a compassion which seemed to pulsate through all living things, a compassion which said that none of us were separate from each other, that nothing at all was really separate from anything else, that your pain was identical to my pain, that your joy was my joy, not because these were principles we'd read in the Bible or taken on authority from those we held in high esteem, not because these were ideals that we tried to live up to, but because this seemed to be the way of things, this seemed to be the nature of manifestation: that we were all expressions of something infinitely larger than ourselves.
But even the word "ourselves" seemed to imply that we were separate, and therefore this was a compassion which was beyond words, beyond language; indeed this compassion transcended any idea of “compassion”, this compassion arose from the fact that there actually is no separation at all, that separation is an illusion, that in fact we are each other, that I am you, that you are me, that we cannot be ourselves without others, that I cannot be I without you, and you cannot be you without me, not in some wishy-washy lovey-dovey sentimental way, but really, honestly: we need each other, we are bound to each other, we cannot live without each other, we cannot live without everything else. I cannot live without that tree I'm walking under, without the raindrops that have made their way down my back, without the old woman who's managed to waddle a little further down the path (she's being so very careful to avoid the puddles, bless her!), without the pond, without the ducks, without the swans, without my new coat keeping me warm, without the man with the dog who smiles and says “hi” as he walks past.
We are bound to each other, all things are bound to all things, which is to say there are not really any separate "things" at all, there is only Oneness, only the whole, only the Buddha, only Christ, only the Tao, only God himself, and nothing exists apart from anything else.
And so to say that on that day there was no "I" is really to say that there was only God, there was only Christ, there was only the Tao, only Buddha, only Oneness, only Spirit, and Jeff had exploded into it all, Jeff was nowhere to be found, in the sense that he was not separate from everything that arose. Jeff was just a story spun by a storyteller with a vivid imagination, Jeff was missing from the scene and yet infused into it, Jeff was nothing and he was everything, he was present to his own absence and absent to his presence, he was life itself, in its entirety, and yet he, in all truth, had died.
And yes, there were tears. What else is there to do but cry at such a discovery? A discovery which really wasn't a discovery at all, because nothing had been found, since nothing had really ever been lost. This clarity had always been there, I'd just been looking elsewhere my whole life and ignoring the utterly obvious. God had always been right there, in the present moment, in the midst of things, but I'd spent my life seeking Him in the future. The Buddha Mind had been my own mind, always, but I'd spent years trying to attain it. Christ had been crucified and resurrected and was walking in the midst of us, drenching our lives in unconditional love, but for a lifetime I had assumed he was elsewhere, in some other world (or in this world but not in my own life, at least).
No, nothing had been found, because nothing had ever been lost. But perhaps it was the realisation of the utterly obvious that hit me that day, the realisation that there was nothing to realise, that everything I ever wanted was always right there in front of me and always would be, that peace and love and joy were always freely available in each and every moment, that love, pure unconditional love, the love of Jesus, the love of Buddha, the love that passes all understanding was the very ground of all things, the very reason for anything being here in the first place. It was there, always there, always waiting patiently for me to return home.
And there, in the rain, on that day, I knew finally that I was home, and what's more, that I would always be home, that I had always been home, through it all, through all the tears and the pain, through the dark times and the desperate times and all the times I thought I'd never make it, through all those times and more, the Home of all Homes had been there. The possibility of the
*
It was a very ordinary walk on a very ordinary, and very wet, Autumn day. And yet, in that ordinariness, the extraordinary revealed itself, shining through the wetness and the darkness and the sludge on the ground, shining so brightly that I was no more, that I dissolved into that brightness and became it.
And yet, that makes it sound way too special. That day, in the rain, nothing really happened at all. It was just a very ordinary walk on a very ordinary day.
I left through the large iron gates, crossed the road and waited for the bus, huddling in the shelter with several others.
Nothing had changed and everything had changed. I had glimpsed something, something deep and profound and in some ways shocking, and yet something that was utterly ordinary and somewhat unsurprising. Yes, it was unsurprising that the very ordinary should turn out to be the only meaning of life, that who I took myself to be should turn out to be just a nice fairy story.
Yes, it was unsurprising, that the divine should be in the utterly ordinary, that God should be one with the world, present in and as each and every thing.
I boarded the bus and as the rain streamed down the dirty windows I smiled to myself. What a gift - to be alive now of all moments, to be in this body of all bodies, to be here, in this place of all places, even though it is all a dream, even though it is all impermanent, even though if we really look, we find nothing but emptiness... [...]
BEYOND AWAKENING:
MORE REVIEWS/TESTIMONIALS "Jeff, Thank you so much. It is the end of the search.... All I can say is, Wow!....
- N.B. "I noticed that I was becoming very upset reading Jeff's new book. And how great is that!? After all the searching and hundreds of non-duality books and teachers, here was a book that made me feel so insecure, hopeless, disappointed to the point that I had no alternative but to relinquish any idea of ever "getting it". Whatever "it" is. The result: I was jarred into clarity.This is not to say that Jeff's words are harsh. Quite the opposite. They resonate with honesty, integrity, and love--which imbues them with the power to go beyond just words--and mind. I highly recommend this book to you. My wish is that it will make you as upset as it made me! They say that "The Truth hurts". But it also sets you free." - Victor Davich author of 8 Minute Meditation: Quiet Your Mind. Change Your Life. "Beyond Awakening is currently my favorite book.... Refined yet still alive, immediate and playful. Absolutely a joy...yet devastating." - M.O, Hawaii "Beyond Awakening is just crammed with exquisitely beautiful and mind-blowingly clear pointers to the non-dual reality ... this book makes it all so damn accessible and the writing has such power that it cannot help but change your reality. There is such compassion and love flowing through the book, something which I haven't really found in other nondual texts. ... As I read and re-read the book, the clarity becomes more and more obvious.... I have read several other nonduality books (Tony Parsons, John Wheeler, Krishnamurti, etc etc) but I think this really is the last word. After you've read the last page it's so clear there is NOWHERE to go!!!!" - Amazon Review "...Like the brush of a master artist it swept over the surface of my self-imposed mind and left me breathless over the simplicity of beauty that was left behind... Truly no words could better describe this ... than ... utterly, utterly Obvious ... I can't thank you enough for letting your words find the paper, to be printed in books, and sprayed over the globe - somehow they landed in my lap, and I have devoured both books twice in a row!" - J.C. Virginia, "Thank you. What you have tried to convery into words is absolutely the truth - there is only now - and I am at last free from the search." - Reader, BEYOND AWAKENING: TABLE OF CONTENTS
by Jeff Foster £7.95/$13.95 "Jeff Foster writes with wonderful clarity about what he refers to as "Right in the midst of life, freedom and enlightenment are always present, always available. Are "you" ready for this message?
As adults, we seem to spend a lot of our precious time attempting to escape from the play of life and all the suffering that being "a person in the world" inevitably entails. Drink, drugs, sex, money and meditation are common methods of escape. In this book, another possibility is suggested: that there is only ever the present appearance of life, with no individual at its core who could ever escape even if they wanted to. Indeed, all attempts to escape merely serve to reinforce suffering and separation. The entire spiritual search is nothing more than a game we play with ourselves, the cosmic entertainment… In a contemporary, refreshing and lucid style, and using various literary techniques, this book cuts through much of the confusion and frustration surrounding the search for spiritual enlightenment, and points back time and time again to the utterly obvious: This moment, and everything that arises in it, is already the liberation that is sought. Life, as it is, is already what we've been searching for our entire lives..." "At (one) place in the book, Jeff confesses, "There is no self to realize; there are no enlightened individuals." This is how every sage talks. They tell you there is no self to realize and at the same time give instruction on how to realize. Whether it's Jeff Foster, Tony Parsons, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, or whoever, they all do it. ... As we read the descriptions and declarations of this.... we start to see ourselves as this, as an immediacy. That's the effect the book has. The floor we stand upon, the floor that we call "me", starts to give way. In the opening cracks we see the Nothingness out of which this, out of which "me" arises. This is a quietly powerful book that leads you to the plunge into Nothingness. "
- Jerry Katz, author of One: Essential Writings on Nonduality Click here for a downloadable PDF extract from the book's introduction.
A NOTE ON THE REVISED EDITION
This book was originally published in a very raw form. It had been compiled from writings made in the years following what some might call “spiritual awakening”. Since then, the way in which this message expresses itself has evolved (an evolution which later gave rise to another book, “Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search”). However, this first book gives a fascinating glimpse into the experience and expression of those early, dramatic days. It is a record of how the clarity began to seep into my world. Back then, it was all so new and exciting, and the expression in Life Without A Centre reflects that early sense of explosive energy, barely containable joy and shimmering aliveness.
These days, the drama of it all has died down, but it still goes on: gently, sweetly, lovingly, innocently, always there in the background, whispering so very softly that everything is okay, everything is always okay. And what a perfect play it has all been, and still is: the seeking, the suffering, the drama of it all, and the falling away, the collapse into presence, into the clarity that reveals itself in and as the utterly ordinary things of life. And none of this has anything to do with a Jeff Foster. Oh yes, that’s the grand cosmic joke here: it’s nothing to do with me. And everything to do with, well, everything. This is about Life expressing itself, not the experiences or beliefs of an individual called Jeff Foster. In this revised edition of the book, the text has been tidied up and changes have been made to improve the clarity of the writing. But remember, when all is said and done, it’s not about the words, however clear they are or are not. The words are just pointers to something which can never really be spoken of. The real message is in the energy, the resonance, the aliveness in which the words arise. And that’s not something that the intellect could ever grasp. Nor does it ever need to. Life Without A Centre is a book about the innocence that you really are, beyond all the seeking and suffering of the mind, beyond your life story, beyond time and space itself.... "NOTHING WRONG WITH SILENCE" This is the unnamable Mystery. And yet we give it a name.
And having named the unnamable Mystery a thousand times over, we take those names to be the reality. And we live according to that reality, forgetting that the names were arbitrary, and a product of the mind.
And the names torture us; we are caught in the middle of the polarities, torn between the opposites: good and evil, love and hate, right and wrong, rich and poor, ugly and beautiful, sacred and profane. This prison is of our own making, and yet we do not realize we do it to ourselves.
The mind (that is, "you") is not interested in the Mystery, because the mystery cannot be an object of knowledge. Indeed, it is That from which objects of knowledge arise, the Void which gives birth to all life. Without it there is nothing. Call it the Tao, call it God, call it Spirit, call it Consciousness, call it Life, call it nothing at all or even deny it; even the denial of it is simply It denying itself. No proof is needed for It. Why? Because this moment is. You are here. It is now. That, and just that, is God. There is no need for belief.
A belief in God is a denial of God. You don't need to believe in something if that something is staring you in the face!
And when this is realized, how quiet everything becomes! All mental noise dies away, and is seen for what it is: a false reality, an illusion, nothing more. You are no longer a person: not a man, not a woman, not English, not American, not black, not white, not Hindu, not Christian, not Muslim, not atheist, not rich or poor, good or bad, not happy or sad; you are not any of these things; you are not this, not that, not any object of consciousness. You are not the body, not the mind. Those feet are not yours, those hands, those legs. That face doesn't belong to you. That head is there, but you do not own it. No eyes, no tongue, no nose, no throat, no heart. No form. Before you are all of these things, you are. You are consciousness. You are awareness. Pure, unconditioned awareness. Not the idea but the actuality, the simple feeling of being. Presence.
You are Life itself, not an individual cut off from the whole, but you are one with all things, because all things are manifestations of the one Life, and you are that Life. The illusion of individuality arises, yes - but it is a manifestation, and you are not doing it. It is not personal. And the manifestation need not be denied - no, it is there. No self-denial is necessary.
The self arises. Let it be. It is an illusion, after all, a construction of thought. You are prior to that construction, you are the awareness in which the construction arises. You are the awareness in which the "you" arises. This is not clever wordplay but the actuality of things - look for yourself right now. Meditate on it. Come back to present experience (this is true meditation). Is there anything solid there called "self"? Is there any clear distinction between you and not you? Where is the boundary? Are "you" contained within the skin surrounding the body? Is that what you experience yourself as?
Come back to the present experience! Without reference to the past, can you know who you are? Can you say who you are, really?
*****
Ah, this is tiring. Attempting to name the unnamable, to describe that which is prior to all description. Perhaps I should just let it be.
There is nothing more to say. Silence is the only honest way to go. Once you reach this point all words are just noise. Noise to fill the silence which is prior to, and envelops, all noise. Why do we pay so much attention to the noise? What is wrong with silence?
*****
Silence.
We reach the point of creation.
Why is there anything at all?
Why isn't there Nothing?
What is wrong with silence?
*****
The noise comes, though. But now we see it in a new way. It is pointless. In the sense that it is equal to silence. Not better, not worse. But it is undeniably there. So we honor it; we do not deny it.
And so now life becomes a play, a game, a divine dance, because it's all meaningless and pointless and purposeless, and it exists for no reason whatsoever other than to be itself. Noise and silence, noise and silence, inseparable. Being and non-being, inseparable. Me and not-me, inseparable. Everything in divine union, not fragments anymore but aspects of a whole, each part important, each piece enabling everything else to be; nothing out of place, nothing unwanted, nothing disposable. Nothing sacred, nothing profane. Being and non-being as two aspects of consciousness, as the two faces of God. And really, God has no faces at all.
Ah, but the words are just ripples on the surface. Plunge back into the silence. No words needed. No words necessary.
No real urge to speak of it anymore. Just the simple feeling of being is enough, the simplicity of this, just this. This moment.
*****
Only this. Only ever this.
Why did it take so long to see it? Why was I sleepwalking my whole life?
It doesn't matter now. Let the past slide away. It is as unreal as the imagined future.
The sound of breathing. The hum of the computer. The creaking of the radiator. A tingling in the toes. Hands moving over keys. Words coming out. Breathing. A sense of deep peace. This is life, damn it! Here! Right here!
Words cannot even scratch the surface of things. And yet we spend our lives scratching on the surface. Thinking we have the answers. Not realizing that there are no answers, because there are no questions. There were never any questions, because this moment is always already perfect the way it is. Any question would take you away from that.
Oh, let it be. Let it all be.
*****
Stay rooted in the silence, and honor the noise...
EXCERPT: "ABOUT THIS BOOK" This book was written over a two year period, as the desperate search for an escape from life began to be seen through. The seeing-through was sometimes dramatic, sometimes subtle, and always hard to talk about without sounding like a complete self-contradiction.
Here are some points to bear in mind as you read.
• In this book, no methods are laid out, no Path to Self Realisation is set forth. There is no Seven Step Plan to Happiness, no Twenty Days To A More Enlightened You. If things were that easy, wouldn’t the mind have ended its search by now?
• There is no logical progression in this book. Nothing follows on from anything else, and the text is riddled with paradoxes and contradictions. And this can be very frustrating for a mind hooked on logic, rationality and intellectual understanding. But as I will point out over and over again, this message is not to be understood on an intellectual level. The writing consistently points back to the simplest but most profound truth: This is all there is. This constant reminding of the utterly obvious will not be of any help to you, the individual, but as the message begins to permeate (for want of a better word) and as the apparent existence of the separate individual is seen through, an ease and an equanimity may be revealed. And this ease and equanimity, well, it’s your natural state.
• This book will not help you, if you are looking to be helped. But perhaps, in spite of this book, there will be a seeing through of the need to be helped. Perhaps there will be a seeing through of the search for spiritual enlightenment, the search for Nirvana, the search for peace, the search for liberation and awakening. Or perhaps there won’t be any seeing through of the search, and that is fine too. Everything that happens is absolutely appropriate, because in the final analysis, you are not in control of any of it. But more of that later.
• Read this book slowly. Its words are meditations, not ideas for you to chew on intellectually. Let the words penetrate, percolate, permeate. Take your time. Enjoy the spaces between the words. Pause occasionally to look around you. If you find yourself rushing through the book, ask yourself why. What do you want from it? What do you hope to get? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for something to click, for some sort of intellectual understanding? For some sort of spiritual enlightenment to descend upon you in a flash of lightning?
Virtually every sentence in this book is pointing back to the same thing, a thing which isn’t really a thing at all. And if you don’t get it from the first page of the book, you won’t get it at all. Because really there’s nothing to get. But as long as there is the belief that there is something to get, there will appear to be something to get. Get it?
Yes, what we’re talking about here is really as simple as doing the dishes, as obvious as the sound of the rain falling on the roof, as ordinary as going to the toilet. It’s so simple, obvious and ordinary, in fact, that it’s nearly always overlooked. And when this simplicity is seen, there can be much laughter.
*
The three sections of this book represent three aspects of liberation. Part One reflects the utter simplicity and obviousness of liberation: it is this, here, now – no attainment necessary. Part Two contains expressions of the undeniable sense of freedom and release that may arise as the existence of the apparent individual is seen through. Part Three reflects the way in which liberation seemingly permeates the apparent life story of the individual. As seeking subsides, certain aspects of life are seen in new ways. It is not a rejection of the life story, but a seeing through of its apparent solidity. Additionally, there are two sections of dialogues about the search for liberation, enlightenment, happiness, God, Nirvana, a bigger bank balance.
And now, on with the show!
"There are no words to do justice to the sheer beauty of this book, and its power of awakening resonance. I have only written two Amazon reviews to date, but cannot allow myself to pass on the chance to say a few words about this one. Over the past six years I have read many wonderful books on Advaita and non-dualism, but have never encountered the unavoidable sense of ever-present aliveness reflected in such a clear, direct and uncontrived way as in Life Without A Centre. Mr. Foster displays a unique style of writing which seems to effortlessly draw the apparent reader into a confrontation with his/her absence, that which is beyond the ability of the mind to grasp. This is a lively, spontaneous, lyrical, and often humorous, celebration in words of the simplicity of presence beyond the need of understanding. If you have read all the rest on this subject, then you deserve to read Life Without A Centre. Thank you, Jeff, for this gift that I know you will say "just wrote itself." - J.R.
"One of the growing number of modern writers who speak the truth of "what is" in a language unmuddied by spirituality-speak. This one resonated with me from the first to the last page." - S.W "Free of arrogance and of taking offense; free of the attitude, "I'm enlightened and you're not;" free of an air of superiority or celebrity; ordinary, pleasant, Jeff Foster is the nondualist next door.... As we read the descriptions and declarations of `this', as we take Jeff's instructions on how to pay attention, we start to see ourselves as `this', as an immediacy. That's the effect the book has. The floor we stand upon, the floor that we call `me', starts to give way. In the opening cracks we see the Nothingness out of which `this', out of which `me' arises. This is a quietly powerful book that leads you to the plunge into Nothingness." - Jerry Katz, founder, Nonduality.com "Just wanted to write and say thank you for writing your book "Life Without a Center", I must of read it over a dozen times before the "enlightenment" occurred. When it did occur, wow I knew there & then that it had "happened". I had goosebumps for a quarter of an hour, I laughed, I danced, my brain positively fizzed with good feeling, and the smile on my face is now a permanent fixture. My character used to be so self conscious it was ridiculous, and now it's being seen though life is immeasurably better..." - A.M. "In this short, brilliant book, Jeff Foster clearly shows that spiritual seeking is futile and pointless, since what we are seeking - awakening, liberation, the Ultimate Reality, etc. - is fully present now, yet we fail to see this because our minds are always searching for some better, happier state.... Jeff Foster expresses this message in such a clear, direct, light-hearted way that it seems obvious and impossible to ignore or refute. Many books about non-dualism and awakening leave one with the feeling that 'I haven't got it yet' and so encourage one to continue searching, but this book does the opposite. I strongly recommend it to anyone who does not want to continue seeking for the rest of their life." - J.W "I love the whole book... What else can be said? The words are gloriously endless, meaningless and pure Being itself. - "I feel like I recognize you as fully cooked, and way better at "teaching" what you have to teach (and I get that it is nothing) than just about anybody. I just love what you write," - J.M, Arizona, USA "Wanted to let you know that I finished your book the other day - it comes as close as anything I've ever read to describing what simply cannot be described... so thank you for nothing! " - J.A. "Just when I think that nothing fresh can be said on the subject of nonduality, your book proves my thoughts wrong. And with a nice dose of humor as well" - M.W "Thank God, I discovered your book, and it soon became very obvious that continuing to search is pointless, silly and unnecessary.... I'd heard this message before, but your book managed to say it in a very clear, direct, simple way which somehow struck home." J.W., "I would like to thank you for your book. I enjoyed it tremendously. Very clear and succinct." - P.B. "Recently read your book ,it was great. Its great for putting an end to the seeking mind." - D.L "Savored your book. Wonderful. Filled the margins with happy exclamations." - G.C. "The incessant seeker is dead - this is it - thank you very much!" - M.F, "I have now finished your book and it is one of those very few books that I find helpful and good. In fact in total I think I know only two others out of thousands I have read. Most books on non duality and spirituality I read and bin! But in yours you really kept consistently to the same points and showed understanding of the seekers arguments vividly." - A.M. "An excellent book to stop a seeker DEAD in their tracks!" - B.S. "Not much to say, but felt a thank you was due for your wonderful book, which I am near finished reading. !!!! Right now I would say it is the most illuminating one I've yet read.... Vividly delightful & liberating, & all of that." - J.S "Your book is the best yet. What a trip! Thank you!" - D. "This is probably one of the clearest books available.... I love is that this book never preaches or pretends to have all the answers,and it feels so human and alive, it really resonates with aliveness and clarity, and it has been invaluable for me in letting go of some of those precious beliefs that one day I would be enlightened (after 64 years you'd have thought 'one day' would never come!)." - "Got the book this morning and plunged straight in.... It says on the cover: "Profound, beautiful, honest and challenging..." I would add to that: Straight talking, funny and refreshing." - G.F. "This book is the perfect one to end the apparent search...nothing to gain,nothing to get,just the constant reminding that this is all there is and that this present appearance can't be avoided and is perfect as it is...Jeff beautifully expresses what is beyond all paradoxes,all words,all concepts,all appearances...what can be said after that?..." - J.P THE REVELATION OF ONENESS:
DIALOGUES ON NONDUALITY
by Jeff Foster
£12.45/$21.45 “A Rare and Essential Book” – Charlie Hayes, author of "Paradise Found"
“The question, "how can I find enlightenment?" is the wrong question. There can only be a seeing.
Jeff expresses the full gamut of that seeing, never leaving the mind with a place to land.
That is what love does. It frees the "you" to be what you already are, the wild flowing water, the complete and total mystery of what is.” – Scott Kiloby, author of "Love's Quiet Revolution: The End of the Spiritual Search"
Nearly 300 pages of dialogues on nonduality and spiritual awakening which explore and clarify themes from Jeff's previous two books Life Without A Centre and Beyond Awakening.
"A quiet revolution in spirituality is taking place. There is a growing sense that freedom cannot be found in philosophies, religions, ideologies; that it cannot be located in books, or reached through lifetimes of intense spiritual practice; that it cannot be passed on by enlightened or awakened spiritual masters; that it cannot be owned, cannot be taught, cannot be captured.
"Jeff Foster's The Revelation of Oneness: Dialogues on Nonduality and Spiritual Awakening (Non-Duality Press, $21.45) is an excellent assemblage. There are four sets of dialogues, and they cover a plethora of topics, including the myth of the mind, death, the appearance of time, unity in diversity, the body/mind, the fallacy of cause-and-effect, and the recognition of our natural state. - Rodney Stevens, radianceofbeing.blogspot.com
EXCERPT: Jeff: The secret of spiritual awakening is staring us in the face, but we cannot see it, because we are looking for it. It’s always happening, but we’re so lost in the seeking game, in the search for something more than what’s presently happening, that it eludes us, perhaps for a lifetime. What we’re talking about today is the possibility that you were never separate from life, from this, from what you seek. There has only ever been Oneness. And it’s happening now. Wherever you are, not just in this room! And it doesn’t take a future to see this. This isn’t something that you will see at the end of a long spiritual path. This isn’t something for you to “get”. It’s already all there is. Well, of course it is, Oneness must be all there is! It wouldn’t be Oneness otherwise! This isn’t about giving up anything. It’s not about giving up spiritual practices. It’s not about giving up the search. That just becomes another goal, doesn’t it? The giving up? If it were that easy to give up the search, we’d have done it by now. If we were choosing to seek, choosing to suffer, we wouldn’t choose to seek and suffer! The point is, you are not doing any of this. You are not doing the seeking, you are not doing the suffering. Already - and this is the secret at the heart of all religions and spiritual teachings – life lives itself. Not my will, but Thy will be done. Already, Oneness is doing this, and you are just a character in a divine movie. Call it Oneness, call it God, call it Spirit, call it Energy, or call it nothing at all, it’s that which allows everything to be. And it’s not separate from everything that is. And it’s not separate from what you are. And this can be seen right now: breathing is happening and you’re not doing it. The heart is beating and you’re not doing it. Sounds in the room are happening and you aren’t doing the hearing. That’s the mind coming in and grasping: “I’m doing it! I’m hearing! I’m seeing! Me, me, me!” So there’s always this illusion of “me” at the centre of my life. And actually, on closer inspection, it’s just not there. If you’ve ever meditated, you’ll have a sense of this. On closer inspection, all you can find is presently-arising thoughts, presently-arising sounds, smells, feelings. But nobody there who is doing all of this. It’s all a spontaneous play, with nobody in control. All an effortless happening, an energetic dance, a wonderfully evanescent play of light and sound, not appearing to a someone, but happening for no one.
And Oneness takes a billion different forms. Right now, it’s taking the form of a bunch of people in a room, listening to someone else talk. This is the dream, this is the story, that there are some people in a room listening to someone else talk! Actually, all that’s happening, is Oneness. And when this is seen with absolute clarity, the whole search for something more dies. There’s no use for it anymore. Because what is, is seen to be all there is. There’s simply no possibility of anything else. And in fact it was always the seeking that made this into a problem. It was the search for the extraordinary that kept this ordinary. Once that search falls away, this is seen to be quite extraordinary. And yet, it’s so utterly ordinary. And this is shocking to the mind. The mind goes “it can’t be this, this is too ordinary!” This destroys all of the mind’s ideas about awakening. But you see, the miracle was always here, right here, in the ordinary things. It’s always been right here. [A baby cries in the background] It’s in the hearing of a baby crying. But we want so much more than that. To the mind, it’s just a baby crying. It’s all so ordinary. It’s all so… known. Actually, this is Oneness, constantly presenting itself. In the form of a baby crying, in breathing, in the feeling of your bum on the chair. And the separate person, the seeker, could never find this. Because actually the seeker, the “me”, the person who wants this, is just a thought! Just a story. A story arising in this. You know, life asks nothing of you. That’s the gift of it. It just presents itself, in this form now. And then in this form. And this. And there’s no way of knowing what will happen next! We’re always right at the heart of it, the Unknown, the Unborn, the Undying.
This message can be quite challenging to a mind that wants to hold on to its beliefs, to a mind that wants something to do. But this message won’t give the mind anything to do. But we’re also not saying that we should give up any of our doing. The point is, you have no choice. Actually, the secret is that the doing is already happening. It’s already doing itself. This is a play of Oneness, and you’re not in control of it. So whether you find yourself sitting here, or walking through a park, or sitting down to meditate or self-enquire, you are not doing it. Already, Oneness is playing this game, and you are just a thought arising presently. Already, this is being done. What needs to be done, is being done. Not my will, but Thy will. Oneness is already complete, and anything you do or don’t do cannot add to, or take away from, that completion.
So, right now, there’s the heart beating. Thoughts arising, perhaps. Sounds happening. You know, we’re just newborn babies. That’s all we are. That’s all we ever were. [Baby cries in the background] Wow, right on cue! [Laughter] You know, this is all choreographed! I’m paying him, you know! [Laughter] |
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"Gratitude is arising here, gratitude for the unspeakable beauty of your words..."
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